Nike 'Dare to be Brasilian'

December 2013

Nike has unveiled its new ad to showcase the new Brasilian strip ahead of next year's World Cup. Starring Neymar, Thiago Silva, David Luiz, Paulinho and Bernard, we see the beautiful game played as only Brazil know how. We worked with Wieden & Kennedy Sao Paulo and Rattling Stick’s Daniel Kleinman on the commercial, creating the huge crowd and crafting the spot's abstract scenes.

The 2D parts of the crowd were shot with rows of people filmed against a blue screen at various angles and with various eyelines and actions. These were then replicated and composited into the stadium using Nuke. The rest of the 40,000 seats were filled by the 3D team using Goalem.

“We worked with motion capture to make sure they moved at the same speed and in the same way, then we made an accurate proxy model for the stadium with marks for where all the seats are and used that to place the crowd” says CG Lead Robert Harrington. Flags and smoke were also added to ramp up the atmosphere. The commercial was rendered in Arnold.

The big vs small players scene was particularly hard – obviously the players had to be shot separately and so it was incredibly important to make sure the lighting matched. It also contains some complicated shots, such as when Bernard runs through one giant’s legs and plays a one-two off another’s. With no actual giants handy on set it had to be shot in multiple parts with the ball added afterwards.

The 2D animation sequence, which was created by Thierry Marchand and a team of illustrators and animators, brought to life for the first time the illustrations of Brazillian comic book artist Rafael Grampá.

The ad saw us work with long-time collaborator Daniel Kleinman, “working with Daniel is always a very rewarding experience” said VFX Supervisor William Bartlett. “We tried to offer up as much as we could creatively in every area, from background replacements, pre-vis work on camera moves and ball skills, and of course the animation. Danny steers us in a way that keeps the whole thing coherent and close to his vision.”

“I am very pleased with the way the whole team worked together and turned around a huge range of work in a very short space of time - often with many people working on different aspects of the same shot" added Will.